"But she isn't free!" cried Gallatin. "You've not freed her, though she has the right to it. You're holding on to her through the boy."
Dick bent over the white crystals in the platinum tray on the shelf of the furnace.
Gallatin, exasperated, waved his fists. "I demand that you free her! If she were free, she'd come with me, for she loves me."
Dick took a metal rod from the case and began pushing the crystals this way and that carefully.
"She loves me, I tell you!"
Without pausing or looking round Dick said: "If you say that again—I'll begin to believe it isn't so. There's no accounting for tastes—especially for tastes feminine. But—" He did not finish; over his face drifted a slight smile more eloquent against Basil's deficiencies than the fiercest stream of epithet.
"I've won her," taunted Gallatin, in wild fury, yet as if restrained by an invisible leash. "I've got her heart. You might as well release the rest." As Dick seemed now quite absorbed and unconscious of his presence, he advanced still nearer. "By God, you shall!" he cried. "She belongs to me, and I'm here to maintain my rights at any cost."
Vaughan laid down the long rod with a gesture of deliberate precision and care, turned slowly toward him. His long handsome face was of a curious transparent pallor. His rather deep-set gray-blue eyes looked coldly and cruelly at his one-time guest and partner. "You evidently don't understand," said he. "There are times when one must either ignore—or kill."
Basil sneered, "Well?" said he, with intent to draw on.
"I have been choosing to ignore. At first it would have given me the greatest pleasure to kill you. Now—you are to me much like the cur that barks and snaps at passers by." He rose. "You've come here to try to make a vulgar scandal. You'll not succeed. You have nothing to lose. I can't give you your deserts without hurting my son. So—" Dick paused, seemed to be reflecting.